10 Christmas Design Ideas To Inspire Your Banner Ads

Christmas is just around the corner and you can feel it in the air! Some people are running left and right for the last minute preparations, some…are staring at their desktop, trying to come up with a creative Christmas design for their holiday banner.Keep calm! We got you covered! Check out our top 10 Christmas design ideas to inspire your banner ads.

Carols are a girl’s best friend

‘Tis the season to be… (insert your text here)!

There you go! You already have a clever and catchy copy for your Christmas banner.

[Tweet “Sometimes, a fantastic copy is just what you need.”]

Whenever you feel like you don’t have any idea of what to write on your banner, take a few minutes and listen to some random carols. Whether it’s the happy ones like the famous Let It Snow or you prefer the traditional ones, like Angels We’ve Heard on High, they will each help in their own way. Adapt lyrics and make them your own. Have a huge sale and don’t know how to put it in words? How about “Jingle Sales”? Sounds pretty fun right? Now it’s your turn! It should be as easy as it sounds.

Step 1: Think about a Christmas carol. What’s the first one that comes to your mind? Ready?

Step 2: What’s the most famous line of that carol? Found it? Perfect!

Step 3: Add your most defining keyword in the lyric and make it fun!

There you go! You have a fun and creative copy for your holiday banner.

Oldie but Goldie

Remember that time when your parents used to send Christmas cards to all your family and of course, they received lots of them too? I recall that I used to steal them all and at some point, I had a huge collection of holiday cards. I also remember that the thing that I loved the most about Christmas cards is that they were never the same. I never received a duplicate. That time of the year was always bringing me new visual stories.

So why not take a look at postcards? Serious or funny, religious or commercial, you should keep an eye on them. Christmas cards are like the ancestors of winter banners and like any old thing, they should be given credit.

Keep the change, ya filthy animal!

This line needs no introduction, since we’ve all watched Home Alone at least 3 times… ok, 5 times. A cool banner design can begin with simply watching an Xmas movie. Take a look at some of the most popular Xmas posters for movies. Don’t have anything on your mind? Here are some of the best ones: The Nightmare before Christmas, Love Actually, Miracle on 34th Street, The Polar Express, How the Grinch Stole Christmas and so on.

Movies like this can be inspirational in 3 ways: their Christmas posters, their Christmas headers, movie titles or their plot line. Grab a couple of friends and have a movie marathon. Inspiration is just around the corner!

Shining bright like a diamond

When it comes to Christmas, I bet we all have the same colors in mind associated with this occasion. You see them everywhere. Your Christmas tree, Christmas decorations, and people’s clothes too. Didn’t we all get that “you look so Christmassy today” kind of line? I know I did! That’s because people associate certain colors with the joy of X-Mas. And it’s not even the colors, it’s the combinations among them Would you tell anyone who is wearing red in the middle of the summer that they look X-Massy? No, you wouldn’t. It’s red in combination with green, or deep blue with pearl white and so on. Also, when in doubt, add a little sparkle. Gold and silver are always a good idea when you want to give your X-Mas designs a touch of holiday spirit.

Don’t believe me? Let’s do a quick exercise. Pick any of your custome banners and change the background color and the font’s color. Replace them with either red, green, gold, silver or deep blue. See what I mean?

The act of gifting

Forget about the price tag! Just count on people’s feelings.

Just think about what you wanted for Christmas when you were little? I remember that every year, there was that something special that I really, really wanted. First, it was a Barbie doll, then it was a tree house, a year later an electric car so that I could drive around like my parents did. If you’d ask me now, most probably I wouldn’t be able to tell you a specific thing, at least not an object, but there is a big chance I would say health or happiness. And I believe that most people are the same.

Do you remember the famous West Jest Christmas Miracle campaign from 2013?

The reason why this campaign was such a huge success is because it touched people’s hearts. That’s what you should do too! Say something through your Christmas designs and you will succeed. If you don’t have any more banner design ideas, you should count on people’s feelings. Make your visuals illustrate a feeling. If it’s love, happiness or the joy of offering gifts, it doesn’t really matter.

Gospel your way through Christmas

We shouldn’t forget what this wonderful celebration is for, the birth of Jesus. Don’t freak out! I’m not telling you to illustrate the whole manger scene in your Xmas banner, but don’t ignore this side of the Christmas tradition. Some people relate better to the whole Santa story, but others like keeping in mind that this time of the year is not only about buying things. Don’t ignore them! Add visual elements like candles, the Christmas star, an angel figure or a cute sheep in your banner graphic for a bigger and meaningful impact. If all this sounds “eh” to you, maybe you’re the type of person who would rather add one of Victoria’s Secret angels instead.

Bring me the food, opa!

Let’s face it! December is not the time for diets. This time of the year is when you end up eating cookies with your friends at 2 o’clock in the morning while playing board games next to the fireplace. And it’s OK. We all do it! And we’ve got large cozy sweaters as partners in crime. Alright, now that we established that we are all gonna get fluffier this season, why not think about using food as a hook to grab people’s attention? Coming up with a creative banner design can be tricky, but not in this case!

Add some sugar, spice and everything nice to your layout. Add cookies, gingerbread or candy in order to make your Merry Christmas banner yummier.

There’s nothing more to say than what you’ve just seen. Symbols! The symbols of this time of the year. Don’t be afraid to use them while creating your Merry Christmas design. A cup of mulled wine, fireplace, mistletoe, reindeers, snowman, snowflakes and so on. Need I say more? You get the idea, right?

Have a sense of humor (or at least, some kind of sense)

Funny things are always likely to get more engagement. Check out this awesome video, just in case you didn’t know it yet. It gained 264k views in just a couple of days. Not too bad I would say. What about this Temptations holiday commercial? People like to think that there’s still a part of them that’s childlike. They enjoy watching funny videos, hear jokes or tell comic stories of their own because it reminds them of the time when it was all about playing games, their childhood. If adopting a fun and funky strategy suits your point of view, then you should go for it!

Hurry down the chimney tonight

You’d better watch out! Mister Claus is coming to town. Imagine we are playing charades, and you just picked up a ticket that says “Christmas”. How would you put that into act? I would start by miming Santa, of course! Ever since Coke came up with the idea of what we consider to be the modern-day image of Santa, we cannot talk about Christmas without him. It’s like talking about art without Picasso or music without Beyonce or Michael Jackson. They go together like horse and carriage.

If you don’t believe me, check out the most popular merry Christmas tags on Twitter or Facebook, in correlation with this time of the year.

#santa and #santaclaus are trending big time! So, keep it classic! Santa is coming to the rescue!

Now that we’ve shared some of our top secret inspiration ingredients in designing creative Christmas banners, we think it’s fair for you to make it even. Let us see what you’ve got under your sleeve and show us your custom holiday ad. Who knows, we might be looking at our next Bannerchamp!